Good morning and according to the increased noise levels at ClashBlog towers it must be the weekend. What is going on with the weather in Britain anyway? When I was a kid snow was a once every 5 years occurrence whereas London this years looks more like Winnipeg than Walthamstow for the second consecutive winter – it’s even impacting me as I got up at a stupidly early hour on a Saturday morning to watch Arsenal only to find the weather had caused the fixture to be scrapped. Annoyed of course but I fell back to sleep for once so that helped.

Today is Dec 18th so I wanted to try and map out a few things for the eighth (how can 8 years pass that rapidly?) anniversary of the day Joe Strummer passed away at his home in Somerset. Apparently we each experience between three and six events in our lives that we can remember til our dying day in exquisite detail, for most it will include things like the birth of a child or the death of a parent or a personal achievement of some sort. I’ve a strong feeling that many of you might have the death of Joe Strummer on that December day on your list of all time unforgettable days. With Joe the impact was two fold as he was who he was and had done the things he’d done but the significance seemed magnified as he was back in the saddle; recording and touring again and bringing that undefinable sense of Strummerness to our world at the beginning of a new century – being a celebrity must be odd for even when the lights are switched off and the crowds are no longer coming out to see you your life with all of its small victories and humbling defeats still ticks on like the most reliable clock ever made. I’ve read that musicians and sports stars often suffer from great depression when their time in the spotlight fades away as its all they’ve known since being a young adult or earlier in many cases. Not coincidentally much has been written about the complexity of Joe’s personality and that he was prone do depression. Though the same chroniclers and Lucinda Strummer suggested that he was never happier than he was those last few years – making music and meeting people – the two things that he seemed to be born to do. That alone makes me happy to some extent instead of a headline that read ‘Joe Strummer who last recorded an album 12 years ago has passed away’ it was the loss of Joe back to his best….small solace I realise but something I’ve thought long and hard about. The second piece was his age, he was only 50.

Over the weekend I’ll publish the full list of Strummer events in case you’re near enough to attend one and it sort of kicks of tonight with Don Letts broadcast (see yesterday’s post) about Joe. As for Wednesday the 22nd I really wanted to hand the blog over to you – I’m sure there are times when hearing thoughts apart from mine will be far more unifying so I am going to open the blog up to your comments and keep refreshing the blog post for that day to include your thoughts – so we can share a sense of Joe’s impact. So…here’s my rather cloth eared suggestion – we’re having an online Street Parade:

Beginning at 7pm on the 21st here (midnight in London) please drop into the blog to celebrate Joe’s life. A sentence or two about your favourite Joe memory, or how you heard about his loss. Perhaps what you think Joe would be doing today if he were still here – or the most important thing about Joe’s life. There’s no wrong answers – I don’t mind if you want a lyric or a favourite video or interview clip to be added to the blog – its entirely up to you. Just (if you can) include your first name or initials and the city / country you are located in. You can even begin sending your thoughts now and I’ll stockpile them. I’ll also pull from facebook if you like. I don’t mind if you care to write 6 words or 506 words, I just hope you’ll take part. The blog post will be updated throughout the day.

To contact me please either

• Add your comments to this post or the one I post last on the 21st, if you have a link to a video or a quote/lyrics please include it.
• Email me at Tim(at)theclashblog.com
• Twitter me up to 140 characters
• Find me on MSN Messenger under the same email address as above.

I sincerely hope you can find a few moments to participate on Wednesday to acknowledge this anniversary, it’ s been an extremely sad day for the last seven years for many of us and while that sentiment lingers I think its time to get some energy from Joe and do something a little more upbeat…but only if you wish. Looking forward to hearing from you – the blog only exists because Joe met Mick and Paul – and its only important (with a small ‘i’) because you come and read it – so please be a part of it. Join our Street Parade.

Good evening and welcome back to the Clash Blog. Tonight’s post has the potential to be either terribly good news or even disastrous depending on how well it’s administered but either way it’s probably as predictable a piece of news as any I’ve read recently (that would include the royal wedding).

I’m sure like many of you, I’ve spent a lot of time wondering when the next Clash or Joe Strummer film would be made. To date since Joe’s death we’ve had ‘The Future is Unwritten‘ and ‘Let’s Rock Again‘ which compiled actual footage and interviews both with Joe and those who knew him. The documentary style lends itself well to the story of the Clash and was probably most effective in Don Letts’ “Westway to the World” but I always expected that eventually a dramatised biopic would be in the works especially since that concept has become far more popular during the last decade. The most prominent examples in recent years may well be ‘Control’ about Ian Curtis and Joy Division. It now seems the wait is over as a full and frank biopic about the life of Joe Strummer is in the works. The producer was behind the recent Ian Dury film.

I’ll take the news as optimistically as possible, if it’s well written and balanced and casts the right balance in portraying the complexities of Joe’s character and achievements it could well be a fantastic film which emphasises the importance of The Clash and Joe beyond the music that was made. On the other hand if the screenplay leans towards the short sharp version and the depth of critical people in Joe’s life may become understated or unexplored a simplistic version of Strummer could appear on screen. I think it’s absolutely crucial that people who really knew Joe well such as other members of the band, Bernie Rhodes, Chris Salewicz, Tymon, Baker, Johnny Green, Lucinda and Gabby are each interviewed to lend more layers and depth to the person that Joe actually was. It’s also important (if possible to capture in a two-hour film) to explore the many and very different phases that Joe went through including some very difficult times. There’s already been so much written about his life and The Clash that a major risk for Paul Viragh as the screenwriter would be to simply lean on what already exists.

To some degree unless it’s completely perfect the film is sure to be found as having faults as many of us will know more about Joe than the film intends to reveal in the first place. Add to that the casting of the main characters and I’m sure we’ll all have a few moans and groans collectively. Before you even get beyond the members of The Clash who on earth could possibly play Joe Strummer? There is that chap from Glasvegas if he can just ditch his Glaswegian accent I suppose, but I think it will probably be better and far more likely that relative unknowns are cast to best play not just Joe but many of the other characters who are already larger than life due to the time they spent in The Clash.

As a project though I think it’s entirely overdue and I hope it can give measured and proper treatment to the subject at hand, let’s just say if 75% of you reading this end up very satisfied with the finished article then the film would have to be called a success. Speaking of what the film is going to be called the rumors are that the working title is “Joe Public” and while I understand the source I think it would be a crap choice. Just call the film ‘Strummer’ and be done with it – you know it makes sense.

There is no confirmed date for shooting or even casting at this time so the chances run that it could be quite a while before we see or learn more and also the inevitable chance that the project gets shelved. I’ll be sure to share more as and when I learn about it. I’d like to play a journalist in the film if possible, perhaps Nick Kent if I can grow my hair in time. Have a good one – Tim

Good evening Clash types wherever you may be and welcome back to the blog. I do hope that you have had a chance to watch the first of those Strummerville session video uploads that I wrote about yesterday, it really is worth a watch and is great to see the foundation seeking to continue the work that Lucinda Strummer and Damien Hirst first outlined almost 8 years ago now. I must make some inquiries to find out the likelihood of future endeavours on this side of the Atlantic also, after appearing at SXSW this past spring hopefully the profile of Strummerville in Canada and the US can be raised even further. Like most things obviously it will come down to funding which is an understood reality but it never hurts to ask.

Image Courtesy Eric Rife

I realised the other day I was little bit harsh about US television and probably unfairly so. Where America has excelled for generations was the format and concept of late-night chat shows. Stemming back to the eras of Ed Sullivan and Johnny Carson there has been a legacy carried on in more recent decades by David Letterman, Jay Leno, Conan O’Brien and others that have come and gone (plus some new ones that remain). It’s entirely fair to say that Jonathan Ross in the UK built his entire Fridays show originally on the foundation of what David Letterman has now been doing for over 28 years and he in turn will always nod in the direction of Johnny Carson as his mentor. You can argue that late-night chat shows in the US don’t always have the edge that they used to but from time to time Letterman, and these days Jimmy Kimmel and Conan still manage to satirise at a high-level yet still acquire some of the best and more casual celebrity interviews. It’s also one of the few forums on network TV in the States where you can often see more alternative/independent acts perform live, sadly it’s usually at the very close of the show and typically just one song. Nevertheless it’s the only time you’ll ever see someone like Billy Bragg on network TV here and notably Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros which I’ll get to in just a moment. Years ago Letterman especially was also very likely to interview the musician before they played live but now days that only happens on the rarest of occasions, a really good example was with David Byrne round about 1983, at short shift I can’t find the interview but you may like this. One moment some of you may remember happened on the Monday following the death of Joe Strummer in 2002, Conan O’Brien (a genuine lifelong fan of The Clash) signed off for the evening by expressing his sadness about the loss of Joe and also played a video replay of Joe and the Mescaleros performing London Calling on his show from an earlier live appearance in ’99.

I stumbled across a blog called ‘Spool Going Round’ in association with Chicago Now and it seems the author has been compiling a list of the 10 best live performances by acts on the Letterman show over the years. At number two he had what has long been my personal number one with Joe’s appearance on Letterman performing ‘Johnny Appleseed’ in October 2001 – don’t forget that’s the very same stage that Mick Jones and Paul Simonon were on with Gorillaz just a few weeks ago. Please hop over to his blog where he pays a classy tribute to Joe and The Clash and then make sure you watch the video below. It’s one of my favorite ever live performances of Joe with The Mescaleros – every part of it is just perfect from how he sings and also tries to communicate with an audience who are primarily there to see Letterman and whatever actor he interviewed earlier. It’s a great clip and worthy of repeat viewing. This definitely opens up a series of possible posts about Clash television appearances and of course post Clash camera time, there have been a number of really good ones – if it wasn’t for bandwidth I would’ve already tried to create the best video page possible, but it really does stress the site to the limits. Maybe sometime down the road (to quote Joe). Have a good one.